Postcard from Thailand
I was lucky enough to spend three beautiful weeks in Thailand recently, staying in Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi, and unsurprisingly ate such great food there that I have got lots to share with you. Thai flavours and cooking is not something that comes naturally to me, but the dishes I ate were so inspiring that I'm definitely going to have to make more of an effort with Thai cuisine. Here's a snippet of some of the highlights...
First up: the holy coconut...
I LOVE coconut. Coconut water, coconut milk, coconut curries, bounties; I love them all. But nothing beats lopping the top off of a young coconut and sticking a straw in. Especially when they're only about 50p a go. A world away from VitaCoco and the like, I just can't get enough of these super-hydrating, super-healthy green goddesses. I'll be popping over to Brick Lane on a Sunday for one ASAP.
Next, Pad Thai of course. I'm no huge noodle fan, but there is something about this famous combo of beansprouts and Thai noodles in a proper tamarind sauce that just works. The Phad Thais we had varied wildly, with price being absolutely no indication as to the quality of the dish. We enjoyed eating our way around them anyway. They generally bring you a tray of various condiments like sugar, chilli, salt, lime, peanuts etc for you to adjust your meal as you eat too, which is great.
Some of the best food we ate (aside from our amazing hotels - check out the Banyan Tree in Bangkok and the Sala in Phuket for serious luxury and brilliant food) was from the little open air beachside restaurants like this...
Everyone warned us how spicy the food would be, which we were looking forward to as both of us like a bit of a kick and can take quite a lot of heat. After a few days of getting pretty cocky about it, I ordered this chicken satay with green papaya salad (below) which was listed on the menu as very hot. The waitress asked if I was sure, but we'd had several of these 'very hot' warnings and nothing came close. Green papaya salad is famously very spicy, and I'd had a few already and enjoyed them so nothing prepared me for what happened when I ate this:
It was hotter than the sun. No joke. I powered through as it was unbelievably tasty along with the hotness, whilst the Thai waitresses watched with obvious amusement. At one point I realised I could no longer feel the bottom half of my face and apparently my mouth had swollen significantly. It was still delicious and I'm dying to make a *slightly* less spicy version at home.
That's all for now!